Take a moment to catch your breath and think about where to go next – Ryan Schultz
So, as I mentioned earlier, I haven’t been blogging much lately. Because I was too busy working full-time as an academic librarian at my employer, the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. Now that I’m done training hundreds of students each year on how to use the university library effectively and efficiently, my attention has turned to my other big project: hardware and software for a virtual reality lab we call the XR Lab. (XR stands for virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, and eXtended Reality, which is an umbrella term for a kind of what Apple now calls spatial computing.
The purpose of the lab is to provide virtual reality and augmented reality hardware and software (both VR/AR experiences and content creation tools) to University of Manitoba faculty, staff and students to support teaching, learning and research. I’ve been working on this project for the past two and a half years, and it feels strange to finally see the computers being removed from the space we’ve designated as the future home of the XR Lab in preparation for the necessary room renovations. (starting soon and expected to be completed by next spring):
In the meantime, I have been cross-training other library staff on the hardware and software I propose for the XR Lab. That is, if (God forbid!) I almost got hit by a bus, but it occurred to me that maybe someone could do a VR/AR demo in my seat. there is many Information that needs to be shared! For example, our past training sessions included a section on how to set the correct interpupillary distance (IPD) on both the Vive Pro 2 and Meta Quest 3 headsets (luckily, Apple Vision Pro automatically scans your eyes and determines your IPD). Set it automatically!). .
there many I have so many balls to juggle that I must confess that I often feel exhausted and sometimes even overwhelmed. When I get home from work, the last thing I want to do is post a blog post! So my previously frenetic blogging speed has unfortunately slowed to a crawl. And my blog post view statistics are absolutely ridiculous. Wow Below. We used to get 1,500 views a day, but now we’re lucky to get a third of that.
In part, this is because the Metaverse hype cycle peaked and then crashed (Everyone is on the side of artificial intelligence.), and partly because in this day and age of short attention spans for Instagram photos and TikTok videos, long-form blogs are increasingly seen as an outdated, even quaint, means of communication.
This means I have to stop and think seriously about where I want to take this blog and who I want my readers to be. One of the things I’ve always said is that on blogs that literally have my name in the URL, nothing What I want to talk about here is the topic! But I wonder if I’ve cast my net too broadly. I think it may be time to narrow the focus of the RyanSchultz.com blog somewhat.
I don’t think I’ll stop blogging completely. I still feel the need to write, but I have some things to reflect on. what I want to write about it. why. I still feel fulfilled when I write a well-written blog post about a topic I care about, and as always, I read and appreciate all the comments and feedback I receive on my blog posts!
So please bear with me while I figure out where to go next (gesture broadly) and all of this.
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